Dear Wisdom Friends,
Once again it’s that time of the year when I have the privilege of inviting you to renew your financial support for Northeast Wisdom.
Despite or because of the pandemic licking at our heels, your Wisdom Council has had a highly productive year, one of our best ever. As online teaching became “the new normal,” Council members Matthew Wright, Marcella Kraybill-Greggo, and Bill Redfield stepped up to the plate with a rich offering a of Zoom study groups and retreats. And of course, out there in the field, many of you were doing likewise in this time of planetary “pause and reset.” Hearty thanks to every one of you who have been holding down the post. It has made a difference.
This year we went back to the drawing boards, literally. In recognition of the growingly international character of our network (which now stretches from New Zealand to the Yukon) and the need to share resources more effectively and with an enhanced online outreach, Bob Sabath and Laura Ruth headed up a task force (also including myself and designer Andrew Breitenberg) to lay the groundwork for a major overhaul of our Northeast Wisdom website, improving its functionality as well as reflecting its increasingly international mission field.
You will see these changes rolled out in 2021, including a new logo and even a new name as Northeast Wisdom will shortly become “Wisdom Waypoints.” In GPS navigation, a waypoint is a specific location en route to your final destination. Once programmed into your computer, it allows you to check your position, mark your progress, and stay on course as you journey forward. Aside from the synchronicity of being available as a domain name, it also seemed like a lovely way to picture the work we are collectively about. Imagine our globe encircled by a network of wisdom waypoints, each providing bearing checks and collectively keeping the ship on course as our planet journeys along its imaginal trajectory. Here is a sneak peek at the new logo:
We are hopeful that these changes will be implemented in early 2021—and that these changes will result not only in a new look but a determined commitment to increased collaboration and resource sharing among the various waypoints. Efforts in that direction are already solidly underway, as we explore an even closer partnership with The Contemplative Society in British Columbia, the original flagship in our Wisdom flotilla. This is certainly among the most rewarding accomplishments of this 2020 calendar year.
My own year has been quiet, but similarly productive as I used the planetary “time out” to complete several writing projects. My new book, Eye of The Heart, made its appearance just this past September. And in the upcoming year Monkfish Publications will be publishing (under the title Mystical Courage) the blog series I shared with the Wisdom community on the Northeast Wisdom website during the height of the pandemic lockdown.
Meanwhile, I have been venturing back into on-the-ground teaching, which I still find to be my appointed post as we step slowly out of lockdown mode and prepare both inwardly and outwardly for a longer term journey with COVID in our midst. Check the NEW calendar for remaining offerings in 2020 and the 2021 docket as the pieces gradually fall into place. It would be a blessing beyond blessing to see you all again face to face.
Amid all this solid activity, the year also brought a bittersweet transition as Bill Redfield announced his retirement from our Wisdom Council to carve out more time for his own rapidly growing online teaching presence. His work is clearly meeting a huge need, and I rejoice for his servant’s heart even as I will miss his gracious and generous presence close at hand. Godspeed, Bill! Your spirit and soul are indelibly stamped into the very marrow of this little organization, which you midwifed so beautifully. And welcome aboard, Marcella and Matthew, who will share leadership of the Council as we move forward, collectively, into whatever the future holds in store.
Thank you, all of you, for your generosity. Collectively, we are making a difference in our planet.
With love and gratitude,
Cynthia
Matthew and I (Marcella) want to add a note to say how excited and honored we both feel to be elected to serve as a Co-chairs of Northeast Wisdom/Wisdom Waypoints during this deepening/focusing/birthing year. This past year Northeast Wisdom has sought to support the spiritual nourishment that people have been craving through this extraordinary time, gathering to practice and study together, with often increased vulnerability and trust, reckonings and openings. It feels, as Laura Ruth aptly stated in a recent Council gathering, that we are on a threshold, a precipice of NEW things.
We have been amazed and grateful for the community response to our two Wisdom Book Practice Circles, which together engaged almost 200 participants. Additionally, being present together six times a week throughout this pandemic via our virtual Wisdom Centering Prayer sits has brought new ways of steadying and offering heart connecting with each other and with our beloved world. Those of you ‘stepping into post holding’ for these Wisdom sits expand our Wisdom presence and interconnection. Having Jeanine Siler Jones join our Wisdom Council this past year has also added new breadth and steadiness to this vision.
Serving our Wisdom Collective is our mission and passion, and if you have been touched by these offerings and have benefited from the sense of connection and formation offered through this Wisdom work we invite you to partner with us in helping to continue ‘manifesting Wisdom in our world.’ For those who can make a donation of $150 or more, a copy of Cynthia’s latest book, Eye of the Heart, will be sent as our gift to you. We invite each of you to join with us in midwifing Wisdom—in your own community, through prayer and our shared intention, and through a financial gift of any size. We are deeply grateful for your financial support that helps us continue Wisdom’s manifestation in new and exciting ways.
We have so much love and gratitude for all of you in our Wisdom community, and we look forward to our collective synergy in the year to come!
Marcella & Matthew
Northeast Wisdom is committed to supporting the Wisdom Community across the country and around the world, and its fount of ‘new arisings’ in the Wisdom lineage of Cynthia Bourgeault. With your generosity and support, Northeast Wisdom hopes to “bear the good new wine of Wisdom to a parched and bewildered world.”
In appreciation for your gift of $150 or more, we would like to send you a copy of Cynthia’s latest book: Eye of The Heart: A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm.
Join us, with your contribution, in the amount that is sustainable to you.
Every gift is received as a gift from the heart, growing the community and furthering the work of Wisdom in the world.
Thank you!
The October 2020 Northeast Wisdom—soon to be Wisdom Waypoints—Council
Clockwise from top left: Marcella Kraybill-Greggo (Co-Chairperson); Cynthia Bourgeault; Matthew Wright (Co-Chairperson), Laura Ruth; Bob Sabath; Jeanine Siler Jones; and Mary Ellen Jernigan (Treasurer)
I hope that as Wisdom Waypoints grows and expands that it will include more stops on the West coast. So many of us here that are unable to make it to the East coast. May God continue her deepening work among us all.
Peace,
Jon
Wonderful! Glad to know you are expanding horizons in name that matches your true reach.
Please describe your new name in terms that don’t involve gps or computers; rather, the stars or hands-on tools.
Our built-in navigational tools that connect to one another are sort of our shared given, of course, and what I know you all will continue to explore .. 🙂
Thank you!!